Notes from the Office

Inspiration comes in many different forms. With Raincoast, I have found it among schools of migrating salmon and with grizzlies wrestling in the estuaries, and this month I found it in our Victoria office.

Raincoast dreams big, and this year we needed the resources to significantly expand our protection efforts with new research, marine resources and increased campaigning power. And we had to do it before the year was out. So we asked you, our supporters, to help us make this dream a reality, and the response was overwhelming.

At the office, it began raining letters and emails, and soon our goal was in sight. This month, your rainstorm of support turned into a category five tropical storm. In fact, if your support didn’t buoy us up so much, we probably would have drowned.

The office became a hub of excited activity as we scrambled to keep track of all of you. Volunteers manned the phones, the computers and the database; we practically had to rent a truck to get all of the thank you letters to the post office.

During all of this I realized that just as returning salmon give renewed life to the Great Bear Rainforest, your offerings of support give us what we need to protect it.

I used to think that the hustle and bustle of an office was a far cry from working in the wilderness, but now I’m not so sure. As I peer out from underneath a stack of envelopes and thank you cards, I realize that this office is also a source of inspiration.

I want extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you – Raincoast’s supporters – for the incredible generosity and support that you have shown us this month and every month. It has been a fantastic holiday season for the coast – and the holidays haven’t even begun.